Our History, Heritage and Culture

Although George only ever moved 5kms from his birthplace in Jindivick, East Gippsland, his life is characterised by some very big moves. A farmer and earthmover turned world champion cheesemaker, George’s life is synonymous...

Ann Jarvis, who had the idea for our modern Mother’s Day celebration, had eleven children and only three reached adulthood. One of Ann’s surviving children, Anna following her mother’s funeral wanted to publicly celebrate her mother’s life. The modern Mother’s Day was born.

This flowing copperplate script with red and white colours is a logo that is recognisable around the world. Its success is due to Asa Candler, whose primary motivation in all he attempted was to be faithful to God through his stewardship.

Lord Shaftesbury had been lobbying since 1828 for something to be done about the terrible conditions and injustices people were that people were forced to live under as the Industrial Revolution took place.

John desired “a wider, freer atmosphere where he might build”. So, with only £10 in his pocket, John, Sarah, and their young children arrived in Sydney, Australia, on the 26th September 1838 after an arduous sea-voyage.

His father wanted him to become a surgeon but, inspired by the wildly popular adventure story Robinson Crusoe, he opted to go to sea. By the time he was 20, he had already served on ships at war with France and had taken part in a celebrated naval battle.

In 1904, a tall, slender, well-dressed woman stepped ashore on the cannibal-infested island of Malaita, in the Solomon Islands group. She was the first European woman to visit the island, and she came in response to a plea from a local Christian pastor, Peter Ambuofa.

BHP, The Church Missionary Society and Old Charlie Our History and the Christian Connection Murabuda Wurramarrba’s son Tony, reached out and dropped his Order of Australia onto his father’s coffin. “He was the better...

During the Industrial Revolution, John Cadbury was fighting against the use of children being used as chimney sweeps. Meanwhile mine owners were recruiting 9 and even 6 yr old children to work in their mines, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for about $2 a week. What was the difference between Cadbury and the mine owners?

Boxing Day 1903 saw 40,000 people in Wales, mainly miners go to Cardiff for a big celebration and many of them ended up all the worse for their drinking. Boxing Day 1904 saw only about 20,000 go to Cardiff but there were only one or two recorded cases of drunkenness.

Did you know that the 2000-year-old words of Jesus, as recorded by a tax collector, had a major impact on safety in Tasmanian mining? These same principles form the driving force for best practice safety management in Australia today.

On 31 October 1917, another history-making moment had arrived. Men from the youngest nation on earth at the time had drawn their horses up outside the Turkish-held stronghold of Beersheba. Smarting from the defeat of Gallipoli, they were keen to engage the Turks on a new battleground.

The Japanese commander who led the attacks on Pearl Harbour and Darwin had six crashes into the sea. On board after an appendectomy, the ship was bombed, both his legs were broken. He wondered why he was the sole survivor of the seven Air Commanders and the thirty-two squadron leaders who took part in these attacks

Have you ever wondered why and how Father’s Day became such an important celebration in our calendar? The events in the life of a sixteen-year-old caused her to be the chief advocate for this special day.

Australia’s ‘Freedom of the Press’ was achieved in 1824. Prior to this the first Australian newspaper was censored by the governor. When Robert Howe took over the printing from his convict father George, this new freedom from censorship enabled him to promote the moral and compassionate teachings of Jesus.

On December 3, 1831 the new Governor of New South Wales, now Major General Richard Bourke arrived in Sydney on the brig Margaret with his wife Elizabeth and three of their children and an exhausted ship’s company.

Before the 1960s, Australia’s indigenous people were not allowed to vote, not counted in the census figures and didn’t have the same rights as white people. They were like nobodies in their own country. That’s something that’s very hard for those who are part of the majority to imagine. But these men acted.

‘To all you people of Aboriginal blood, I say…I am fighting for your freedom. Aboriginals still live under laws meant only to control criminals and lunatics: they are not allowed ordinary human rights…I can promise you nothing but the will to work.’ - Bill Ferguson

A thin-faced man with a trim moustache stepped out of the car and was quickly ushered out of sight. But not quite quickly enough. The visitor was seen by a Nazi spy who happened to be visiting the colonial secretary at that very moment. What did this have to do with the war?

On New Year’s Eve 1999, an estimated 2 billion television viewers around the world watched Sydney’s spectacular millennium celebrations. Sydney was to host the Olympic Games in 2000 and the city was the centre...

‘Banjo’ Paterson, one of Australia’s and the English-speaking world’s most famous poets is immortalised on our ‘new’ ten dollar note. His role with the Anzac battalions in the Middle East 100 years ago is one of the lesser known parts of his life. His horses became the real heroes of the famous Light Horse charge.

At Fromelles the 19-year-old sergeant led his men into a water-filled ditch. He inadvertently raised his head a bit too high, he was shot in the face. On his recovery he returned to active service. His wounding did not dampen his faith and caused him to organise a Bible Circle to encourage others to deepen their faith.

“I am being eaten alive by ants,” cried the wounded soldier. Two Chaplains and another soldier, crawled towards the wounded soldier. A Turkish sniper opened fire. Andrew died the same day and the other Chaplain a week later. Why do Chaplains do this?

“The richest and most powerful Government of the world, master of India and a million men, failed in the colony, where a single woman succeeded through her force of character and vigour of soul. Without fortune or help she did more for Australia than all the emigration societies and the British Government put together

Why does William Cooper have a memorial plaque at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Israel? An Academic Chair, worth 1 million dollars, as well as seventy Australian trees being planted as a tribute to him. What did he do to deserve all this acclamation?

The Sydney Harbour Bridge was his most famous achievement, opened at the height of the Great Depression and now a priceless relic. He also oversaw the design and construction of Sydney’s railway system. Bradfield ranks as one of Australia’s finest-ever engineers and involved in many significant Australian projects.

The dark-skinned Aboriginals could not believe what they were seeing. They look human but they look so pale, so ghost like, they are so white. Where do they come from? What are they doing here? What do they want?

Arthur Phillip laid a humane foundation to the colony with his declaration that ‘there can be no slavery in a free land, and consequently no slaves’. His humanity extended to the Aboriginal people: he ordered that there was to be no pay-back when he himself was speared at Manly by an Indigenous warrior.

It wasn’t easy carrying a Bible in the playground so Helen and her friends had pockets made in their dresses for carrying a Bible or a New Testament. When Helen was 16, the group was called ‘“The Pocket Testament League’ “and it had a membership of 60 girls, now there are over 370,000 members world-wide.

David Jones converting a large section of their Sydney city store into a Club for servicemen and women!!
Is David Jones, the oldest department store in Australia and the oldest department store in the world, still trading under its original name, really going to open a club for servicemen and women in their city store

His dream was to be a surgeon so he started studying Medicine at Melbourne University but became very ill with typhoid. He recovered, but the typhoid left him with shaky hands and he realised they would never be steady enough to operate. What was he going to do? His dreams were crushed...

Many Europeans were not sure if Australia really existed. There were stories and myths about a great big continent somewhere in the vast southern oceans. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, born in Portugal, was brought up with a deep belief in God and he believed that he was divinely chosen to find this mysterious Southland.

He was standing at the water’s edge facing advancing Hawaiian warriors. Unfortunately, at that crucial moment some of his men started shooting from the boats as he turned to stop them from firing he was fatally stabbed in the back.

Death seemed imminent. Confronting them on the bank were nearly 600 Aboriginals, painted, armed and making menacing gestures to their war-song. Reluctantly he picked up his double barrel shot gun. He levelled his gun at the closest native with his finger on the trigger.

By the 1950’s, the Royal Flying Doctor Service was acknowledged by former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies as “perhaps the single greatest contribution to the effective settlement of the far distant country we have witnessed in our time.”

He patented an improved hand tool for sheep shearing, and invented a centrifugal motor, a multi–radial wheel and a mechanical propulsion device. He considered the ‘helicopter’ before it was invented. He wrote poetry and authored several books.

Perhaps the greatest trade union organizer in Australian history, William Guthrie Spence. In 2003 the head office of the AWU in Melbourne was also named after him. The AWU secretary called him, “the founding father of not only our union, but unionism as a whole in this nation”.

He was the 2nd, 5th and 7th Prime Minister of Australia, the first the first Attorney General. He was the architect of the High Court, the Public Service, the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration and the Australian Navy. He was highly esteemed by all.

Salvation Army Offering (SAO) whether truth or fiction, one thing is certain: the then twenty-one-year old manager of the Arnott Biscuit factory, Arthur Smith Arnott, walked in one morning with a Salvo jacket on to the bewilderment of the staff.